1) Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates generally to methods and systems for coating surfaces of structures, and more specifically, to methods and systems for applying aerodynamically functional coatings to exterior surfaces of structures, such as air vehicles.
2) Description of Related Art
Air vehicles, such as commercial passenger and cargo aircraft, may have exterior surfaces that are coated or painted with colorful and decorative designs. For example, such exterior surfaces of an air vehicle may include exterior surfaces of the tail, wings, fuselage, nacelles, or other exterior surfaces of the air vehicle. Such colorful and decorative designs may include airline livery designs which are standard paint schemes on aircraft that prominently display an airline's logo, name, or other identifying feature to provide branding and differentiation of the airline. Since airline livery designs may provide not only a decorative function, but also a branding and differentiation function, it is important that livery designs be consistently applied and with acceptable appearance, gloss, and long-term durability.
In addition, maintaining desired flow characteristics over coated or painted aircraft surfaces, such as airline livery designs, for example, coated or painted on the tail of an aircraft, may be challenging. In order to avoid impact on desired boundary layer characteristics during flight, there are allowable criteria for paint edges and waviness. There may also exist restrictions for three-dimensional surface discontinuities, such as those that may occur from inclusions caused by debris, dust, or dry coating overspray, which may be more stringent than for steps or for waviness.
Known methods and systems exist for applying multi-color airline livery designs on exterior surfaces of aircraft. For example, such known methods and systems may include building up coating or paint layers on either a primer layer or a basecoat field color layer using either tape or a premask to mask out the airline livery design. These known methods and systems for applying multi-color airline livery designs on exterior surfaces of aircraft may make it difficult to meet or maintain aerodynamic performance requirements, such as requirements for coating or paint edge angles or coating or paint edge peaks needed to ensure a preferred aerodynamic performance.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for improved methods and systems for applying coatings or paints of decorative designs, such as airline livery designs, to exterior surfaces of air vehicles, that provide advantages over known methods and systems.